what is supposedly resurrected at resurrection?

iblowmynoseatyou

This is an idea that really freaked me out when I was still "in". I asked it several times in groups of friends, and i would get two reactions: confusion/not understanding, and silence/looking at the ground.

If you die, and your body disinegrates, and the soul doesnt live on; in fact, NOTHING lives on, then what is resurrected? and if there was something that goes on, that would ruin the idea of not having a soul.

I mean, seriously. the lack of a good answer would seem to kill the whole resurrection premise.

best case scenario, god would clone you exactly. so all your buddies that made it would think it was you. but any rational person would realize that once your body and brain die, and disinegrates, there really cant be anything that goes on. but it would suck for you, because you would die, and then...nothing. and your stinkin clone would be walking around livin' it up.

any thoughts?

candidlynuts

god remembers you and you magically rise from the ground even if you were creamated or buried at sea.

(how's that for an answer?)

btw welcome!! i enjoyed your other thread.

LtCmd.Lore

You are absolutely right. Welcome to the forum.

I don't think the average dub is intelligent enough to understand this though. However another way of getting the point across would be to, first have them explain it to you... Then when they get to the part about god putting all your memories in a NEW body ask them:

"What if he 'resurrected' you right NOW, while you are still alive?"

Answer = There would be TWO of you. One original, and one copy.

God then makes the copy perfect and proceeds to kill the original.... you.

The outcome? The original is dead, the copy lives.

It doesn't matter if he does it NOW, or after you die.

The effect is the same no matter what order he does it in.

Leolaia

If you die, and your body disinegrates, and the soul doesnt live on; in fact, NOTHING lives on, then what is resurrected? and if there was something that goes on, that would ruin the idea of not having a soul.

You have hit the nail on the head!

The Watchtower notion is NOT resurrection. They use the word "resurrection," because it is in the Bible and they are stuck with that word. But using the word doesn't make it resurrection for the reasons you mentioned.

Here is a post I did several years ago that explored this issue:

http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/11/80742/1319806/post.ashx#1319806

What the Society teaches about the "condition of the dead" is very close to what the Sadducees taught, who "denied the resurrection" by having no notion of an afterlife. The favorite proof text, Ecclesiastes, represents the Sadducee view very well; although the Society quotes 9:5, they never draw attention to the very next verse, which denies the possibility of a resurrection: "They will no longer have any share in anything done under the sun" (v. 6). Essentially, the Society grafts onto the Sadducee view a pseudo-resurrection belief that assimilates it to what is in the NT. So a person isn't resurrected, but God recreates the person from his memory of the person who died, and the Society simply calls this act of recreation "resurrection".

As the texts in the link show, many Jews and Christians outside of the Sadducee group (such as Pharisees and Essenes, among the Jews) believed that there would be a resurrection and that there is an intermediate state between death and resurrection in which the soul or spirit of the person has some form of conscious existence. In fact, take a look at the many statements in Jewish and Christian literature through the second century AD that refer to a conscious (and eternal) torment of either the dead or those (including those resurrected) in Gehenna:

http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/134604/2396862/post.ashx#2396862

GoodnessGracious

SO do JW's believe that when you are "resurrected" that you are resurrected in the state of mind that you died in . Meaning, will they recognize their loved ones, their kids, grand parents?

Do the witnesses really believe that they will be the only ones who will be "resurrected"?

Superfine Apostate

JWs believe in the resurrection of good and bad (with some exceptions, depending on their mood). the resurrected body is a perfect clone including the mind of the deceased. the clone would awake like from sleep.

a topic i sometimes brought up (because of some things that happened in my family) was: what happens with born dead or aborted babies. i suppose they can't be resurrected in their mother's womb. they also can't live outside their mother's womb. they also can't be resurrected several years older. so are they resurrected at all? if not - then what was wrong about abortion again?

sorry if i touch some nerves with this, but i asked these questions because of a personal loss.

BurnTheShips

Bingo Lore!

Burn

nvrgnbk

So would you know that you're you?

sir82

For an interesting take on the implications presented in this thread, see the movie "The Prestige", released last year.

So good I paid to see it twice!

Cindi_67

SO do JW's believe that when you are "resurrected" that you are resurrected in the state of mind that you died in . Meaning, will they recognize their loved ones, their kids, grand parents?

I lost my sister a year ago to breast cancer. I have been asking myself that same question ever since. I started analyzing our belief that nothing survives after you die. I started to remember also that we were taught that Jehovah will resurrect those who have died, but in a different body and that we will be able to recognize them by how they act, talk, and because they will remember us. Our personalities and our feelings were developed in the brain but the brain ceases to work and decomposes with our bodies when we die, then how is it possible that we will be resurrected in a different body but our feelings, our thoughts and our memories are back?

I wonder if indeed something does live on after we die, but we are not entitled to know. You all know that according to the Bible, we will never be able to understand how Jehovah works, and this might be part of those things we will never understand. He does remember those who have died, and the Bible also says that to him all of them are alive. I think they are somehow, waiting to be brought back to life. As ghosts, or spirits? Maybe not, but somehow they could still be alive.

Here's some information I found on a website. I'll put the link below, but I found these very interesting in particular.

I don't think it was the intent of God or the 'universal consciousness' (assuming there is such) to reveal all to the satisfaction of everyone of us. For if it had, then surely we would all be believers. It all seems to be part of a greater plan to have it all this way.

· We probably need to endure a minimal amount of suffering while here on earth or otherwise we would regress spiritually (due to becoming more smug and taking more of a 'blame the victim' attitude when others suffer and therefore we would become less empathetic when not enduring any suffering ourselves).

(1) We are on earth to increase our empathy for other life and to be accountable for the effect of our actions and behaviour on the world. An example of this in practical terms is if we know that when we drive recklessly and our passenger dies as a result, we will feel badly. But if we know that they will be reunited with the same loved ones in the afterlife that they leave behind when they die, then our empathy for others will not improve as easily. This is because we know the loss is only temporary for everyone effected and it is as if the person who dies only just goes to a foreign land for what is a very short period of an infinite life. This might be why we do not have a complete knowledge of the afterlife. Note that with the full and complete knowledge of an afterlife, ones actions might improve but our empathy for other living things while here on earth would probably not improve to the same extent. Also, we may be motivated by spiritual reward and not progress spiritually to the same extent.

This is the link to the entire information viewed from all points of view. Interesting reading and certainly an eye opener for me.

http://lifeafterdeath.info/

what is supposedly resurrected at resurrection?

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